Kitty [ web site ]
august 26th, 2003
Wow, that guy was very suspicious, wasn't he, LOL! That walk of grasshoppers sounds kind of nasty... *shudder*
Spacious Place
august 25th, 2003
OK, wow! Today I finished taping the raw material for the piece; it went better than I could have hoped or imagined!
I drove down to Rosebud to meet Roger Hamm and Marie Russell. We drove out of town looking for one of the pump-jacks, the big oil-pumps I was talking about in an earlier entry. On our way we saw a pick-up at one of the oil stations, so we pulled in to ask the oil guy if he knew where a pump jack was. Luckily Roger kept the recorder going!! The guy totally mistrusted us. He thought we were spies from a competing oil company, or maybe very poorly prepared terrorists…“why should I tell you where the pump-jacks are? Who are you with?” He was so suspicious!
Once I’d finally convinced him that we were artists just trying to record the sound of a pump jack, he grudgingly told us where the closest one was…“but if anyone asks, I will deny ever talking to you. You never saw me. I never saw you.” It was so cloak-and-dagger! We assured him that we were indeed invisible, and drove off to the gas-powered pump-jack.
Gas-powered pump-jacks are quite rare. Mostly now they are electric, and we never would have found it if the guy hadn’t told us where it was. They make a WAY better sound for my purposes than the electric ones. I was so glad. Hooray for suspicious red-neck oil guys!!
Side note: the walk out to the pump-jack was covered with thousands of grasshoppers, tens of thousands. The sound of their wings whirring by the microphone as we walked is oppressive and amazing. Plagues of locusts!!